It is common for the babies to spit up after feeding, but if this happens often and it is also accompanied by vomiting, it could be a sign of GERD in infants. This refers to the stomach content’s upward movement, such as acid, into the esophagus.

Treatments for infant’s GERD

There are a lot of changes that you could do to make the problem better. In case of the babies, it is useful to elevate the baby’s head. Another thing that you could do is to keep the baby in an upright position for about a half an hour after you feed him or her.

It is also a good idea regarding GERD in babies to thicken the milk by adding to it some cereals. This should be done under the supervision of your doctor. Another idea that you could use is to change the feeding schedule of the baby. If the doctor approves, you could also try feeding the baby with solid food.

Drugs

When it comes to GERD in infants there are some drugs that you could give to the baby in order to decrease or increase the gases. These include simethicone, for instance mylicon and gaviscon. Naturally no matter what kind of drug you are thinking about, first you have to discuss the matter with your doctor.

Decreasing and neutralizing stomach acid

For baby’s GERD, it may be useful to decrease the stomach acid. If your doctor agrees, the baby could receive antacids, such as Maalox and Mylanta, histamine-2 blockers, like Pepcid, axid, zantac and Tagamet. Proton pump inhibitors could also be useful like Prilosec, nexium, aciphex and prevacid.

The truth about GERD in infants is that the doctors aren’t really sure whether the decrease of the stomach acid actually decreases the reflux. In the majority of the cases, the drugs that neutralize the stomach acid by increasing gases are considered to besafe for babies.

However, when it comes to GERD in children high doses of antacids could result in side effects like diarrhea. If the drugs are used for longer periods of time, they could result in rickets, which means the thinning of the bones. The stomach acid production inhibitors rarely cause side effects.

Drugs for intestinal coordination

In case of GERD in infants, it is important to have good intestinal coordination, and for this you could offer the child Propulsid. This was withdrawn from the market, but it can still be found in small amounts. It works by increasing the pressure on the esophageal sphincter and it speeds up the ingestion process.

This means that in case of children’s GERD the esophagus isn’t that exposed to the contents of the stomach. The drug is considered to be really effective when it comes to reflux in children. However, it could also cause abnormal heart rhythms.

No matter how unpleasant GERD in infants could be for the children, you can see that there are some things that you could do to make the child feel better and healthier.